Use the following questions as a guideline to determine whether an enterprise email marketing platform is right for you.

1. Do we have the right human resources in place? To succeed with email marketing, you need people who can handle all the features that a platform offers. This covers everything from design and content to data and strategy. Depending on the platform, you may need different levels of skill to create email templates.
2. Does our customer data reside in disconnected silos throughout the organization? When different departments like sales, marketing, procurement or customer support don’t work together, your customer may not get the best or most relevant experience with your brand. A platform for email marketing at the enterprise level can help you link these separate systems and understand your customers better.
3. Do we have customer knowledge gaps that could be filled with trusted second- and third-party data? Your brand’s relationship with customers is based on first-party data, such as email addresses, which are becoming more valuable as Google and Apple phase out third-party data sources like cookies and mobile IDs. You can enrich your customer database with other data about who they are, where they live, what they buy and more. This can help you fill in the blanks in your customer knowledge. As you get better at collecting and matching data, and access more shared data sources, you may be able to create a complete picture of your customers.
4. Are we in compliance with CCPA, GDPR and other data privacy regulations? Data privacy is a big issue these days, as more and more cases of data breaches and misuse come to light. This means more rules and regulations to follow, like the GDPR in the EU or the CCPA in the US. Using data to market your brand can give you an edge, but it can also put your brand and your legal status at risk. Many platforms for email marketing can help you comply with the changing laws and build more trust with your customers.
5. Do we have C-level buy-in? Email may seem simple, but it can be tricky to manage at a large scale. A platform for email marketing can help businesses overcome these challenges. To convince top executives of the value of a new platform, you need to show them the results of test projects and agree on what success looks like beforehand.
6. Can we invest in staff training? To get the most out of a new platform, you need to train your technical, design, content and marketing teams regularly. Some platform providers include or charge extra for training, so check with them about this.
7. To what extent do we need to share data and reports with non-email marketing staff? Some platform providers help you connect data across your business, so other teams like customer service and product development can also see the whole customer picture. If you want to use these features, make sure the connections, interfaces and reports work for other people in your organization too.
8. Have we established KPIs and put a system in place for tracking, measuring, and reporting results? You need to have a clear idea of what you want your email marketing to do. Do you want to turn newsletter readers into buyers, or more loyal buyers? Maybe you want to make them like your brand more and guide them through a longer buying process. Having specific goals will help you figure out if you need an enterprise platform and which one suits your business best.
9. Do we have realistic expectations? Switching to a new email platform can take a while to pay off, especially if it’s very different from what you’ve been using. You may need to change your culture and your workflow. Having realistic expectations and goals will help you get support from everyone in your business.

Dig deeper: What is email marketing and how are platforms helping brands succeed?

Email marketing helps organizations acquire and retain customers, build businesses and make more money. Explore the platforms essential to email marketing in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!

The post How to decide if you need an enterprise email marketing platform appeared first on MarTech.

Make sure that all potential internal users are on the demo call, and pay attention to the following:

• How easy is the platform to use, especially when it comes to design, previewing and collaboration?
• Does the vendor seem to understand our business and our marketing needs?
• Are they showing us our “must-have” features?
• Is the reporting actionable and are we able to extract insights from the data with the human resources we have available?

Here are some other important questions to ask each vendor:

1. What is your approach to list management and hygiene?
2. How do you validate the accuracy of your data appends and matches?
3. How do you comply with privacy regulations and consumer choice?
4. How robust and flexible are your reporting options?
5. Can reports be customized and automatically delivered to different users and types of users in their preferred formats?
6. Where are the actionable reports?
7. Are there workflows built in that allow for coordination between marketing, content and design teams, as well as brand and regulatory compliance?
8. Can we work with franchisees in local markets, or internal operations in different geographies, within the platform to ensure consistency and compliance?
9. How does the platform integrate with martech platforms (i.e., CRMs, DSPs, CDPs)?
10. Does the platform feature any built-in data activation capabilities beyond email sending (i.e., display ad campaigns or social media marketing)?
11. What reporting do you provide that will document the ROI from our efforts?
12. What does the onboarding process entail and how long will it take?
13. What are the training options, i.e., is it online only…or will you send people to our location to train us on site?
14. What kind of customer support is included? Can we pick up the phone to report problems?
15. Will we have a dedicated account manager and technical support?
16. Do you offer a proof-of-concept to measure potential performance and scale?
17. What kind of professional services are available? And how much do they cost?
18. How does the company handle requests for product modifications?
19. What new features are you considering?
20. What’s the long-term roadmap and when are features expected to launch?

If the vendor answers your questions and the platform seems to meet your needs, it’s time to start checking references, speaking with existing customers, and negotiating the contract.

Email marketing helps organizations acquire and retain customers, build businesses and make more money. Explore the platforms essential to email marketing in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!

The post Finding the best email marketing platform: 20 questions to ask appeared first on MarTech.

Companies are currently bracing for a potential economic downturn, and many are searching for a solution to their current woes. Increases in labor costs over the past few years, an abrupt churn of employees and clients, looming difficult business decisions and keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of new and emerging technology solutions are all compiling realities in today’s climate—causing further complexities for businesses today.

So where do you turn? AI tools like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can mitigate many of these fears and create real efficiency and opportunity for your business. Creative solutions like ChatGPT are already a reality for digital advertisers. So what’s next for AI in the industry—and more importantly, how can the industry leverage them to reap their direct benefits, such as increased efficiency, productivity and efficiency?

Using AI to create new business opportunities

Savvy digital advertisers are already using AI tools—like ChatGPT—to support creative tasks like writing content (email copy, outlines for long-form content, etc.), generating keywords and code, and creating images with just a few simple prompts. And this is only the beginning. As variations of ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots continue to advance, users will be able to ease on the prompts they give and, in turn, have to modify even less.

Where else will we see AI in digital advertising? Customer support is one area where AI can learn from unique data points of your customers like commonly asked questions, and reply to them as they arise again.

Generative language is also emerging in videos; users can quickly generate and deliver important messages via web portals, email and the like—at scale—to unlock critical time savings. Consider the multi-family industry: with this form of AI, users can quickly upload a few images which AI can use to create a video of their available properties in seconds. It’s these types of forward-thinking solutions that will drive efficiency throughout the industry.

Why it’s time to get on board with automation

What do emerging AI technologies have in common with navigating economic headwinds? It’s simple: automation can create vast efficiencies within your organization. The need to hire 20 additional strategists to support the grunt work is no longer a necessity; instead, you can automate those repetitive—yet critical tasks—and focus the staff you have on the more strategic side of your business.

One of the most straightforward ways to understand how automation can create these efficiencies within your organization is to look at the salary of one of your digital advertising strategists. On average, strategists bring in around $80-$85,000 annually. So imagine if they’re spending half of their time each day on tasks that could be automated, like account launches and budget management. That’s virtually $40-$45,000 per year per strategist you’re spending on taskwork. Multiply that by a team of 10 strategists, and at the very least, that’s $400,000 a year you’re spending on tasks that simply could have been automated. Automating task work also transforms the time it takes to do it—think days down to seconds.

Once you start reducing the time your employees spend on taskwork, you can put them on more forward-thinking efforts. Creating more productive hours for your team also decreases the number of strategists needed to complete taskwork. That’s the power of automation: It creates benefits for both the business from a revenue perspective and employees from a sentiment standpoint. Both outcomes are important— and both parties come out on top.

Don’t take your hand off the wheel

AI is taking form in the industry, whether organizations are ready or not. The question is, will you adopt it and stay afloat, or better yet, get ahead? Or will you continue to resist it and get left behind by an organization that can cater to the rising demands of this technology? If you don’t know where to start, begin by thinking of AI as an assistant or alternative solution to hiring.

Despite the promises of automation, AI in digital advertising is still very much like the notion of a self-driving car. Sure, it’s extremely convenient and impressive, but it shouldn’t be left to its own devices. The same rings true for automation. You can’t eliminate the need for creatives—to do it right, you’ll still need a team of strategists pulling the levers and supporting the more strategic side of the business, but the need to fully staff a team for the grunt work is in the rearview mirror.

How fluency leverages AI to create opportunities for scale

One of the ways Fluency—an enterprise-level ad automation platform—creates opportunities for scale is through Blueprints—a Fluency-exclusive benefit of the platform. Think of Blueprints as an advertising strategy plan that uses data to build and apply changes to advertising accounts at scale. Why is this important to your advertising strategy? Blueprints offers the ability to create the backbone of your advertising strategy and launch against it with selected accounts for large-scale control. Where it used to take your staff countless hours to launch accounts, Blueprints use dynamic data points, like inventory feeds, to inform advertising account structures and all of the elements contained in them, like campaigns, settings, targeting, keywords, creative and pretty much everything else.

The result? Quality increases, capacity is limitless, and success is sustainable. These are just a few of the many ways partners of Fluency can take advantage of automation to create a meaningful ripple effect across the organization where the work is strategic and engaging.

Explore Fluency’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform.

The post How AI can recession-proof your business appeared first on MarTech.

It’s a strategic process for connecting a target audience to the company’s products and services. There’s no sleight of hand. In other words, the company provides the steak, and marketing offers the sizzle. 

But there’s a disconnect between corporate expectations and real, measurable marketing goals from digital transformation. Across industries, companies must bring business into the modern world by offering their customers positive digital experiences. But many have struggled to accept this, and some are still “making due” with outdated tech to their detriment.

Take, for example, Southwest Airlines and its recent systems failure. The company’s IT breakdown is infamous around the world and affected thousands of customers. The numerous delayed and canceled flights left many people stranded, causing some to miss out on holiday plans. Marketers and PR professionals are still dealing with the airline’s soiled reputation and terrible customer experience fallout. 

So, what should marketers do when the company fails to deliver the service they promised? 

To win customer trust the brand’s offerings must meet consumer expectations. And consumers expect the companies they purchase from to be digitally advanced and relevant. This is why we marketers must be our companies’ advocates for modernization and innovation. 

Tech sets the tone for modern business experiences

Every company is digital, no matter the product or service offered. Marketers should adopt this digital-first identity and tie it to both employee and customer experience. 

Customers expect a frictionless digital experience. They won’t accept that computer problems are reasons for a company’s failure to deliver. Tech stacks comprised of outdated legacy systems cannot deliver the experiences customers expect.

Failure to upgrade digital experiences and sticking with legacy platforms is felt across industries. Breakdowns like Southwest’s systems failure come from a faulty core belief, according to Ramesh Ramani, CEO of digital learning experiences firm ExpertusONE. (Disclosure: ExpertusONE is a client of Zen Media.)

“Corporate leaders continue to operate under the mindset that advanced technology is nice to have — that it’s nonessential — and therefore, an investment in the tech stack can be delayed,” Ramani said. “But tech is not a nice-to-have feature. It’s the only way companies can build relationships with stakeholders and remain competitive in their markets. Neglecting the tech stack is detrimental.”

Satisfying customer experiences are orchestrated with technology. It’s a marketer’s chief concern in these times of Google and Yelp reviews. Business leaders, marketing and otherwise, need to be committed to digital acceleration because shortcomings in the tech stack have a ripple effect. 

Downtime is costly for production and business operations. Poor internal digital experiences reduce employee engagement and negatively affect morale. And the loss of customer trust due to a systems failure, like the one that Southwest experienced, can ruin a brand’s reputation and disperse its customer base. 

If your company cannot meet the standard customers expect when it comes to digital experiences, you risk losing their interest and watching them flee to other, more innovative competitors. 

A strong tech stack is essential to preserve customer trust

A strong tech stack is the first step in preventing a breach of customer trust. This is why marketers must be advocates for a digital-first brand identity. 

Southwest’s failure proves how internal tech problems can significantly damage brand reputation. 

As marketers, we need to see the value of technology from a higher level, beyond marketing-specific technology. We must understand how our organization’s entire tech stack — from operational workflow tools to L&D software to IT management and HR tools — can impact the customer experience.

The digital experience is part of the “steak” companies must provide so that marketing can deliver the sizzle. If your marketing efforts are successful, but your customer experience isn’t, the strategy will be a wash. 

Let’s say you reach your target audience through social media content marketing, but your website is frequently down due to back-end IT issues. The customer will swiftly move on to another brand, likely one of your competitors. After all, if your website isn’t reliable, why should they trust that your brand is? 

It’s non-negotiable. Updated tech is now the expectation. Companies failing to meet this expectation will lose customer trust, which is not quickly recovered. 

Marketers cannot be solely reactive. Brands won’t successfully reach customers if their primary message is damage control. To succeed, you need the support of a tech stack that always delivers on customer expectations. 

Our ability to connect brand identity to customers’ digital experiences when interacting with our company gives us the power to create a compelling case for tech innovation. We must hold our organizations to a higher standard and ensure the products we’re marketing hold up in today’s modern marketplace. 

The post Why CMOs must be the company’s biggest advocates for digitalization appeared first on MarTech.

The benefits of automation are clear: replace the need to manually manage your digital advertising accounts with fulfilling work, such as strategic planning and forward-thinking conversations. Drastically reduce the stress related to a business exclusively powered by people—such as eroding salaries, mass churn and unbalanced account ratios.

While it all sounds great in theory, executives often wonder where to even begin, and how the presumed benefits can become their organization’s reality.

You may be ready to reap the benefits of automation today, but the simple truth is that automation requires dedication, alignment and strategic planning for how automation will be used before deployment. It also requires an understanding and buy-in of the following:

• Defining your strategy
• Documenting your processes
• Change management

Strategy for success

The first step in preparing for automation is to evaluate and document your overall organizational strategy prior to rolling out an automation solution:

• Identify your competitive differentiators in the market.
• Identify your client-facing value proposition.
• Document your approach from end to end.

In short, it is what makes up your organization’s identity—from your services to your audience and the like. These considerations may seem very basic, but being able to articulate them to your future automation partner is important. In addition to getting granular, be open to change. Automation is an opportunity for exponential growth across your business. Being able to articulate your value proposition and then knowing it will ultimately change and evolve—for the better—will help your organization expand and diversify its value and bottom line.

Documenting your processes

Another part of readiness to consider is how your organization is currently operating. Documenting a digital ad agency’s processes means detailing all of its workflows from onboarding through execution. Doing this will create a centralized source for your future automation partner to refer to and streamline for operational efficiency and scalability across the business.

Not sure where to begin? Here’s an easy way to think about this: Consider how you’d explain the workflow for launching ad accounts to a brand-new member of your team. How would you onboard this employee and share with them the critical, day-to-day details, such as:

• How to set ad spending limits
• How to enable notifications
• How to select your campaign’s objective
• How to choose your ad placement

….and so on.

Now that you’ve made it to this step, you’re likely more prepared for automation than perhaps you thought you were. As you look at these details, you can start to uncover where your team can start saving time. For example, if automation will save 80% of your team’s time launching new accounts, where can you start applying this newfound bandwidth? This is where the fun part comes in, where you and your team can start dreaming up impactful strategy and innovation you once didn’t have time for.

Change management

Since automation can dramatically shift your business, it requires energy and buy-in from the top. The most successful agencies that chose automation also chose to embrace change. Trusting in the endless possibilities and benefits of automation and keeping its big vision at the forefront of implementation will put your business in a positive position.

Once you have acceptance and buy-in from your executives, it’s time to move through the rest of the organization. This is where it’s important to share wins and opportunities with your team. Once teams start to see that they’re no longer consumed with low value task work (like building decks and getting bogged down with unrealistic account ratios,) the buy-in starts to increase. Enthusiasm for implementation and an increase in overall morale follows suit once they see that there’s finally time to breathe and dive into strategic planning.

Despite some people’s perceptions, automation isn’t taking jobs away—it’s removing the low-value task work so your team can focus on high-cognitive work that not only excites them but contributes to your competitive advantage. As you move through the various phases of implementation and onboarding, keep sharing wins and future possibilities—it all adds up to embracing change.

Agencies and enterprises choose to implement automation for different reasons, but one thing remains the same: gone are the days your organization used to operate. It’s not a matter of when, it’s how automation will shake up your processes and workflows based on your organization’s short- and long-term goals. But remember, the possibilities are always worth it.

Fluency is your automation partner

Although every digital ad agency faces its own unique challenges, having enough time—to do what you both need AND want to do—is a problem that unites them all together.

Automation implementation is unique to every business—Fluency is an automation partner that will take the time to get to know your unique challenges and make the automation process feel natural. “Our platform is an invitation to take control back, to decide what you want to do with your time,” notes Tomy Szczypiorski, Fluency’s VP of client services. “But it’s also an invitation to change the paradigm of what clients can expect from your agency, and that can help you build and retain your customer base well into the foreseeable future.” Looking for a partner on your automation journey? We look forward to hearing from you about your own agency’s challenges, and discussing how Fluency can help solve them quickly, sustainably, and transformationally, today.

The post Digital advertising automation is here: Are you ready? appeared first on MarTech.

Shlomi Ron, founder and CEO of the Visual Storytelling Institute, first explained NFTs and crypto to MarTech almost two years ago. (See “A Guide to Visual Storytelling” Part I and Part II.) We thought it would be a good time to talk with him again to gain a better understanding of how NFTs, crypto and blockchain work together to propel Web3.

Step 1: Crawl

NFTs and crypto are each hard to understand when viewed in isolation. They must be taken together to see how they work. As Ron put it, “[They] are like the building blocks for Web3 technology.”

“Think of NFTs as one-of-a-kind treasures, like rare collectible toys, that can’t be replicated or traded for anything else. They help keep track of who owns unique digital things like digital art and in-game items on the blockchain,” he said.

“Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, are like digital wallets filled with virtual cash. They help make payments and transactions on the blockchain secure and trustworthy,” Ron continued.

“Both NFTs and cryptocurrencies help Web3 work smoothly and securely, like puzzle pieces fitting together,” he said. “You can pay with crypto currency to buy NFTs in order to buy goods, services, and other digital assets.”

Step 2: Walk

Which leads to the tangible rewards Web3 must deliver. The whole point of this technology package is to engage customers in such a way as to increase brand loyalty. Just remember that the reward cannot be commonplace, like a coupon or a free pizza.

The NFT/blockchain combination can be crafted to deliver a customer reward that cannot be copied or faked, Ron pointed out. “By offering exclusive rewards, brands can encourage customers to engage with them and develop a sense of loyalty as they receive rewards that are otherwise unavailable.”

“Think of them as the evolution of the good ol’ loyalty points that airline companies offer but with a long-term ownership benefit,” Ron said. “[B]y using blockchain technology to track and reward customer engagement, brands can provide a sense of security and trust, which can further increase loyalty.”

Dig deeper: Web 3? It’s the web we hope for, not the one we know

Step 3: Run

Some brands are already trying out Web3 solutions, with varying degrees of success. Ron listed a few such efforts.

• The Gap used the Tezos blockchain platform to launch its own NFT program. NFT owners got a limited edition hoodie.
• Gucci turned to the Roblox platform to launch its “Gucci Garden” for a two-week period. “It attracted 20 million players despite being open for just 2 weeks,” Ron said.
• Gucci Town was the permanent follow-up, launched last year. “It sold one NFT accessory for over $4,000, exceeding the price tag of the physical version of the accessory,” Ron noted.

A more extensive use case popped up last December, when The Art Basel Miami art show saw a number of brands tried out their Web3 offerings on the public. “Phygitals (Rtfkt’s Nike co-branded Space Drip sneakers), distributed NFTs as a reward for doing something, such as attending a fashion show (Altuzarra) or being a member of a special app (Adidas),” Ron said. “Token gated entrances allowed NFT collectors exclusive access to events by DressX or Bored Ape Yacht Club.

“But it doesn’t end there. After people attended these exclusive events, they received NFTs called POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocols) – paving the way for future rewards.” Ron added.

Step 4: Fly

Web3 is a promising start set against the dismal background of the “Crypto Winter”.

“The key triggers include an overvalued market, with some coins like Bitcoin reaching all time high $65k in Nov 2021.”  Lack of regulation and rampant speculation fueled the chaos. Follow this with “the crash of the Luna and Terra stable coins, [and] the FTX’s crypto currency exchange bankruptcy. Last year’s volume of crypto abuse didn’t help,” Ron said.

A few things must happen to build public confidence in NFT and crypto if Web3 is going to succeed. “The public needs to have better understanding of how these technologies work in lock step with better usability,” Ron said. Right now, these processes are disjointed. “People need to be sure that their transactions are secure and the NFTs they buy are authentic,” he said.

“In short, to cross the chasm from the recent Early Adopters stage to Early and Late Majority, we need better usability, security, regulation and stronger utility,” Ron continued. “Embedding crypto and NFTs in everyday use cases that will drive perceived benefits.”

Ron reminded us that we are still in the early days of Web3. That world is “still wide open for everybody to innovate in.”

The post So how is this Web3 supposed to work? appeared first on MarTech.

Web 2.0 made the web page interactive.

Web 3.0 runs on blockchain, enables the use of crypto-currencies and NFTs, and uses AI.

Say that again?

Bringing many existing, but cutting-edge technologies together, Web3 is supposed to be “the next big thing”, taking the internet into the 21st century. But like any new technology, Web3 is long on concepts and short on implementation. People are still trying to figure out how to use it.

It beta be good

Major brands are giving the technology a test drive. Last November, Nike announced the creation of .SWOOSH, a Web3 platform now in beta testing to create an online digital community. Fans will eventually create interactive digital objects (shoes, jerseys),  adding up to a digital collection to be launched later this year.

Likewise, Starbucks started a blockchain-based loyalty program last December. Starbucks Odyssey, also in beta testing, will offer coffee themed NFTs and an enhanced loyalty program that goes beyond offering free drinks. Interactive activities (“journeys”) will allow fans to earn collectible “journey stamps” (NFTs). Those journeys could be watching videos or visiting different stores to try different drinks, later to be redeemed for benefits or experiences.

No matter how a Web3 platform is constructed, the goal is to get customers more engaged with a product. The challenge is figuring out how to build the program that makes best use of the platform. There is no roadmap for this…yet. Firms and clients are only now trying to chart that course.

Leading edge, bleeding edge

In Nike’s case, selling sneakers ad infinitum made no sense. Consumer demand was not sustainable in the long term, noted Blair Richardson, director at Rehab. The British agency began working with Nike in 2018, “and we proved the case for digital collectibles over the space of two years, with small prototypes within closed groups.” He said. “Time will tell whether mass audiences will lean in, but Nike is confident enough to have since developed the dedicated division: Nike Virtual Studios for this exact reason – satisfying consumer demand for both physical and digital products.”

Australia-based Mooning is working with the Accor Hotel Group to run a NFT Art Gallery, featuring the work of women digital artists from around the world, said Lisa Teh, director. “Titled Digital E/Scapes, this activation was also designed to educate hotel guests about NFTs. The artwork is being auctioned off (anyone can purchase it while visiting the gallery or online) and the proceeds will be split between the artist and a charity of their choice.”

Didn’t this balloon burst already?

Still there are practical, as well as conceptual, obstacles to be overcome by agencies and clients alike. Recent failures inspire caution, not action.

Web3 “is evolving at an exponential rate, but there is still a lot of friction for the consumer.” Teh noted. “[A]fter the crypto crash last year and the rollercoaster ride that is the NFT market, a lot of people lost confidence in the sector.”

Teh used Bored Ape Yacht Club as an example. The group raised the awareness of NFTs, along with public disbelief. They “couldn’t believe people were paying millions of dollars for what they perceived to be a jpeg of an ape.” Teh said.

Yet there is a practical dimension to explore for NFTs. “We are only now starting to see more real-life applications…such as digital tickets, memberships, collectables, etc. The fact that the blockchain enables you to track ownership in a way never before…makes it game changing technology,” Teh explained.

“Brands and creators have gone from a position of FOMO to actually assessing where web3 can add value to their audience.” Richardson said. “There needs to be a clear use case opportunity and a problem to solve, otherwise audiences won’t see enough value and it will live and die in the hype cycle. This requires extensive research, ideation, prototyping and validation.”

“We believe that the technologies must run in the background, if web3 is to really catch on with a mass consumer audience.” Richardson continued. “Brands and creators really need to communicate more in terms of the value web3 brings, as understanding of all the tech components and their connection is still very limited.”

See and seize the future

Digital marketers are not condemned to learning Web3 by trial and error. Experience in Web2—what we have now—and well-known marketing practices, provide a solid foundation to build on. The challenge will be separating novelty from utility.

“I believe clients understand the key pillars of Web3 for their audience; ownership, community,” Richardson said. “However, until there are case studies and huge success stories that validate brands moving budget from Web2 to Web3, it will remain on the edges and more within innovation teams. Or worse, ‘gimmick’ marketing stunts.”

“I would encourage people to look at what some of their favorite big Web2 brands are doing.” Teh added. “Many are moving away from the cliched NFT drops and looking at how the technology can solve real world issues. This will help them understand the potential of the space.” Those big brands will put the tech in context, making it easier to understand, she said.

“We are also a long way off mass adoption. Having big companies like Starbucks, Nike…invest in the space will certainly accelerate that.” Teh added. Clients must look past the hype to understand the underlying technology and its potential for change. Then “they’ll realize it’s not a fad and is here to stay.” She said.

The post Web 3? It’s the web we hope for, not the one we know appeared first on MarTech.

You can use one or all of these tactics to fill your pipeline and grow your business no matter the time of year or the state of the economy. And the best part is, they don’t require a massive budget.

Check out these 11 proven tactics you can use to generate more customers for your business.

1. Give to get

One of the oldest tricks in the book is giveaways. They are a great way to get attention, build awareness and generate leads. After all, who doesn’t love the chance to win something valuable?

The best giveaways are “viral giveaways,” where everyone who enters can earn more chances at winning for each other person they get to enter. Even if only 10% of people bring one other person, that’s 10% more leads for zero effort or cost.

Running a giveaway doesn’t have to cost money, either. You can give away your products or services or get other companies to donate prizes. And it doesn’t have to be a single prize. 

You’ll attract more leads based on having more chances to win (e.g., multiple tiers of prizes or multiple winners) and based on the value of the prizes. Just be sure that what you’re giving away is related to your business so that the people who enter are ideal leads.

2. Draft an email

Cold email is an incredibly effective way to generate leads and acquire customers. A quick scan of your inbox and you might disagree. We all get spammed with poorly written blast messages that are completely self-serving. However, it’s an extremely powerful way to talk directly with your ideal customers.

You’ll need a quality list, relevant details about the person you’re emailing and a clear and compelling message. Plus, loads of patience, persistence and the ability to handle rejection.

The most important thing to remember about cold email is that it’s not a volume game. Blasting 1,000 people a day isn’t going to get you customers. Reaching out to the right people with a thoughtful, custom-tailored message is guaranteed to be successful.

Dig deeper: 3 reasons I deleted your cold outreach email

3. Create compelling content

Content marketing is one of the most powerful ways to a steady flow of leads and customers. In today’s world, video platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are some of the best places to create content.

Your content doesn’t always have to be of high production value — it just needs to be educational and entertaining. As with most marketing, you need to experiment with different types and pieces of content to find what your audience will respond to best. However, your efforts will be rewarded because the right content can spread quickly, has a fairly long shelf life and costs nothing to maintain.

4. Build a tool

You’ve probably seen the headline analyzer from CoSchedule. It’s a free tool where you can paste in any headline and it will give you a score out of 100 with specific recommendations on how to improve it. It’s simple, useful and free. (And, might I add, addictive!)

Most importantly, it’s generated a massive amount of awareness, leads and customers for CoSchedule. After all, I’m writing about it here, even.

The point is, creating a free resource is a smart way to give value first, generate awareness and capture the interest of your potential customers. And just like the headline analyzer, your tool or resource doesn’t have to be complicated.

Years ago, I created a tool to calculate how long it would take to read all of the books on your reading list (and how old you would be when you finished). It was extremely simple, but fun to play with. As a result, it got lots of attention and was eventually acquired by one of the major publishers.

Take some time to think about a simple tool you could build — it might be your next goldmine.

5. Try before you buy

Free is one of the most powerful words in marketing. People love getting free stuff. Getting people to raise their hands is much easier when you give them something free.

This can often take the shape of a free trial or assessment. Either option attracts potential customers and gives them a risk-free way of experiencing your business.

As with all marketing, you should experiment with what you offer people for free and how you communicate the value to the potential customer. Just saying something is free isn’t enough to get them interested.

Often adding scarcity (the next 5 people who reply get this) or urgency (available until supplies last) can help get people off the fence and in the door.

Dig deeper: Why and how to use loss aversion in email marketing (plus 4 examples)

6. Build connections and community

There are a ton of highly-engaged communities that are filled with your perfect future customers. Many of them are completely free, with a handful having a nominal entry fee. Either way, it’s critical that you find them, join and make yourself known.

Now, wait. Don’t just jump in and start promoting yourself or your business. That’s a surefire way to get kicked out. Instead, take time to get to know people, add value, answer questions and build equity in the community.

Does it take time? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

As a member of several communities where my ideal clients hang out, I’ve made wonderful connections, built a reputation and generated new business. The key is to focus on connecting with others, being helpful and providing value.

7. Commit to social media

The thought that you can attract customers and close business on social media is mind-blowing. Years ago, that seemed unfathomable to me but it’s entirely possible for everyone and especially for B2B companies. Social media marketing is one of the most important channels in today’s marketing landscape.

Don’t be on every social media platform out there. Pick one or two and commit. Stay focused, learn the ins and outs and be consistent. The more value you bring, the more benefit you’ll accrue.

If you aren’t getting customers from social media then you need to change your approach and make it a priority.

8. Borrow influence

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone else do your marketing for you? What if they could also do it better than you can?

Influencers are absolutely amazing. They have loyal audiences they know how to connect with and are hungry to make money from their influence. They’re also really easy to find and have a conversation with.

If you haven’t already tried working with influencers, be sure to give it a chance. Identify a few smaller influencers in your space and jump on a Zoom call with them to brainstorm win-win opportunities to work together. Oftentimes, it can be as simple as giving them free products to promote or offering nominal compensation.

Be sure to use tracking links (UTM links) or discount codes with any campaign you run with influencers. You’ll want to be able to measure the impact and results because not all influencers are created equal.

9. Go on tour

In 2022, I was a guest on 36 different marketing podcasts. It was an exhilarating and rewarding experience that also earned me new clients. And it was one of the few marketing activities that barely felt like work.

There are many ways to go on tour: podcasts, guest blogging, guest webinars and many others. The idea is simple — find out where your ideal customers watch or listen and then show up there.

Once you identify the places you want to appear, simply reach out via email or social media and pitch them why they should have you as their guest. If they’re interested and available, you’re set.

Every appearance you make gives you more experience and credibility to continue reaching out to bigger outlets that have larger audiences. You’ll get customers and you’ll have fun in the process.

10. Ask your customers

The simplest, most effective way to get new customers is to ask your customers to talk about you. Yes, I’m talking about referrals.

Why does almost nobody have a process for generating referrals? I don’t care if you’re B2C, B2B, new in business or a Fortune 500 company — you must have a consistent process for generating referral business!

It costs you almost nothing, is extremely predictable and generates the highest quality customers — people like your existing customers.

Do you have a process for asking for referrals? If not, build it today!

You can also ask past customers to return and do business with you again. Tell them what’s new, what you’ve changed or improved and offer them an incentive to come back and give you another shot.

You won’t get more customers unless you ask, so start asking.

Your next customers are waiting

There is no shortage of customers waiting to hear from you. It’s up to you to decide which of these 11 tactics to pursue. 

Here’s my recommendation: Pick just one tactic and focus on it for a few months before moving on to another. It’s easy to get carried away by trying to do multiple things at the same time. Instead, build a campaign or a sprint around one specific tactic. Review the results and decide to continue, adjust or try something new.

There are so many ways to acquire new customers, but none will work unless you create a plan and take action. With focused and consistent execution, you will have all the customers you could ever wish for.

The post 10 steps to target and connect with potential customers effectively appeared first on MarTech.

Marketer interest in CDPs increased significantly — by 32% — between 2021 and 2022, according to Gartner. And interest in the category among CIOs, which may represent the involvement of these technology leaders in buying committees, rose by 91% between 2020 and 2021.

Our new report, “Customer Data Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” is now available for free download.

One factor driving this trend is the increasing importance of customer experience, which is improved through timely data gathering, AI-assisted segmentation and the personalization of interactions. At the same time, marketers are facing the gradual, but seemingly inevitable, extinction of third-party data as fuel for their marketing programs. Therefore, businesses are looking to CDPs to bolster their first-party data and engage in privacy-compliant practices like sharing through data clean rooms.

CDPs enable marketers to create a single view of the customer by gathering data from software deployed throughout the organization. High expectations, along with the proliferation of possible customer touchpoints, make cross-device IDs and identity resolution — the ability to consolidate and normalize disparate sets of data collected across multiple touchpoints into an individual profile that represents the customer or prospect — critical for helping marketers, sales and service professionals deliver the ideal total customer experience. CDPs offer this consolidation and normalization and also make the data profiles freely available to other systems that deliver campaigns, webpages and other interactions.

What is a customer data platform (CDP)?

A CDP provides three core features that make it unique from other systems.

• A unified, persistent customer database that provides data transparency and granularity at the known, individual level. A CDP can identify customers from many different data sources by stitching together information under a unique, individual identifier. The CDP then stores its own copy of the data.
• Control over customer data collection, segmentation and orchestration through native (out-of- the-box) integration that minimizes the need for IT or developer involvement.
• Data integration of both known and anonymous customer data with any external source or platform, including CRM, point of sale (POS), mobile, transactional, website, email and marketing automation.

CDPs can be used as systems of record, storing both known and unknown customer profiles in a central repository that integrates data from all of the organization’s software and operational systems. The data is accessible for marketing analysis, segmentation and insight discovery, with the goal of increasing the velocity and effectiveness of omnichannel marketing campaigns.

A CDP is not a CRM, DMP or marketing automation platform. A CDP provides a unified, persistent customer database that provides data transparency and granularity at the known, individual level. A CDP can identify customers from many different data sources by stitching together information under a unique, individual identifier. The CDP then stores its own copy of the data.

CDPs also give marketers control over customer data collection, segmentation and orchestration through native (out-of-the-box) integration that minimizes the need for IT or developer involvement. And lastly, CDPs offers data integration of both known and anonymous customer data with any external source or platform, including CRM, point of sale (POS), mobile, transactional, website, email and marketing automation.

The CDP Institute’s definition of a “RealCDP” requires it be able to do the following five things:

• Ingest real-time data from any source.
• Capture full detail of ingested data.
• Store ingested data indefinitely (subject to privacy constraints).
• Create unified profiles of identified individuals.
• Share data with any system that needs it.

Virtually all of the CDP vendors that meet that criteria provide the following core capabilities:

• Data management (collect, normalize and unify customer data in a persistent database),
  often after IDs have been matched by other systems.
• Features designed for use by the marketing organization and other departments, without the
  aid of IT or data science resources. (Though some functions, like building connections to other
  platforms and performing sophisticated data modeling, still require additional resources.)
• Connections to and from all external systems on a vendor-neutral basis.
• Structured and unstructured data management.
• Online and offline data management.
  

CDP vendors differentiate by offering more advanced capabilities that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Native identity resolution to stitch customer data snippets from disparate sources.
• The number and breadth of robust pre-built connectors to other martech systems. The near-universal availability of APIs means connections are always possible (with more or less developer involvement), but offering pre-built, tested integrations adds value.
• User interface (UI). The vendors differ in the user-friendliness of their interfaces and the methods people use to do things like create segments, view profiles, etc.
• Analytics, including those powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, that surface insights, enable journey mapping, audience segmentation and predictive modeling.
• Orchestration for personalized messaging, dynamic interactions and product/content recommendations.
• Compliance with vertical industry and international data regulations.

Different types of CDP

Though CDPs share a category name, systems differ substantially in terms of their primary focus. Because of this the CDP Institute has divided up the market by “types” of CDPs — data, analytics, campaign and delivery.

These specializations are a legacy of CDP vendors’ origins in other spaces. For example, some Data CDPs began as tag management or web analytics providers, leveraging the data they gathered to expand into linking data to customer identities, assembling unified customer profiles and storing them. While these systems allow users to extract audience segments and send them to external systems, Analytics CDPs do all this and more. Their capabilities can extend to machine learning, predictive modeling, revenue attribution and journey mapping.

Campaign CDPs, according to the CDP Institute, “provide data assembly, analytics and customer treatments,” which are closer to one-to-one addressability than segments. They also offer features to orchestrate campaigns across channels. Similarly, Delivery CDPs focus on delivering profiles and messages through email, websites, mobile apps, CRMs and more. These players sometimes began as systems to deliver messaging, later adding CDP features.

It’s worth noting that a new type of CDP is emerging, one which lets marketers “compose” a CDP to suit their needs by yoking together software from different companies, or assembling modules from the same vendor. It’s similar to what some are advocating for in digital experience platforms (DXPs), where a business can be more agile by picking and choosing modules with different functionalities (and swapping them out as needed).

Customer data management

Real-time data collection and maintenance is a core CDP customer data management platform function. All CDPs provide a central database that collects and integrates personally identifiable customer data across the enterprise. From there, however, CDPs vary in their abilities to manage the following:

• Data ingestion capabilities: CDPs use various mechanisms to ingest the data that goes into the unified customer profile — mobile SDKs, APIs, Webhooks or built-in connectors to other platforms. Identity resolution: The platform “stitches” together customer data points, such as email addresses, phone numbers, first-party cookies and purchase data, from various channels matching them to create a single customer profile.
• Identity resolution: The platform “stitches” together customer data points, such as email addresses, phone numbers, first-party cookies and purchase data, from various channels matching them to create a single customer profile. Some players partner with other providers for this capability, while others have their own systems.
• Online/offline data: The platform leverages identity resolution or an identity graph to stitch together behaviors in order to create a unified profile.
• Data hygiene: The platform enables users to clean and standardize customer records.
• Structured/unstructured data: CDPs differ in their capabilities to manage unstructured data (i.e., social media feeds, product photos, barcodes), which may comprise up to 80% of all data by 2025, according to IDG.

The importance of each of these data management capabilities will depend on a particular organization’s business goals, and whether it has a significant mobile presence, direct mail budget or brick-and-mortar stores and/or agents.

Analytics

CDP vendors offer analytics capabilities that can do some or all of the following: allow marketing end-users to define and create customer segments, track customers across channels and glean insights into customer interest and intent from customer behavior and trends.

The functionality provided can include predictive models, revenue attribution and journey mapping. To one extent or another, many of these capabilities may utilize machine learning or artificial intelligence to surface insights about audiences and proactively offer suggestions about the best next step to move a prospect through their purchase journey.

Orchestration

A select group of CDPs provide campaign management and customer journey orchestration features that enable personalized messaging, dynamic web and email content recommendations, as well as campaigns that trigger targeted ads across multiple channels.

The customer data platform often automates the distribution of marketer-created customer segments on a user-defined schedule to external martech systems such as marketing automation platforms, email service providers (ESPs), or web content management systems for campaign execution.

For example, the CDP could deliver targeted content to a web visitor during a live interaction. To do this, the CDP must accept input about visitor behavior from the customer-facing system, find the customer profile within its database, select the appropriate content and send the results back to the customer-facing system. A customer data platform may also facilitate digital advertising through an audience API that sends customer lists from the CDP to systems (i.e., DMP, DSP, ad exchange) that will use them as advertising audiences.

Data regulation compliance

CDP vendors vary in the support they provide for compliance with the wide range of vertical market and international regulations that safeguard customer data privacy. Some build compliance features into their platforms, while others rely on outside systems. The European Union’s GDPR was implemented in May 2018 and impacts all U.S. marketers and firms handling European data or serving customers in the EU. Brands marketing to Canadian consumers through email must also comply with the country’s CASL (Canada Anti-Spam
Legislation). Meanwhile, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect in January of 2020.

Marketers in the highly regulated healthcare market must follow HIPAA and HITECH regulations. In addition, all organizations that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information must maintain a secure environment that meets Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), as well.

Third-party systems integration

CDPs streamline integration of customer data by providing out-of-the-box (or native) connectors for many martech systems, including CRMs, DMPs, marketing automation platforms, DSPs, and campaign analytics and testing tools. Most marketing organizations have assembled a marketing stack that contains many of these types of platforms. But integrating the data that resides in the martech ecosystem is a huge challenge — one that costs U.S. brands millions of dollars annually. The majority of CDPs profiled in this report also provide at least a basic API to enable custom integrations.

Explore platform capabilities from vendors like Blueconic, Tealium, Treasure Data and more in the full MarTech Intelligence Report on customer data platforms.

Click here to download!

What are the benefits of using a CDP?

Marketing executives today are in charge of dozens of martech applications to manage, analyze and act on a growing volume of first-party customer data. But despite increasing efficiency, the emerging martech ecosystem has created problems with data redundancy, accuracy and integration.

Automating customer data accuracy and integration through a CDP can provide numerous benefits to marketers and to other functions across the enterprise.

These include the following:

Expanded enterprise collaboration. A CDP fosters cooperation among siloed groups because it gathers data from throughout the enterprise and supports customer interactions across many touchpoints. The unification of data allows enterprises to see how strategies for audience, customer experience and execution all fit together – and enables audience portability to ensure a more consistent, informed customer experience.

Improved data accessibility. A CDP is a centralized hub that collects and houses customer information from every corner of the enterprise. Pieces of data are normalized and stitched together to build unique, unified profiles of each individual customer. The result is a persistent customer database whose main purpose is to gather and share data more easily and efficiently across the organization

Streamlined systems integration. A CDP unifies data systems across the enterprise, from marketing and customer service, to call centers and payment systems. By creating a single “system of record” for first-party customer data, data redundancies and errors can be minimized, and data can flow more quickly into — and out of — marketing automation platforms, email service providers (ESPs), CRMs and other martech systems.

Increased marketing efficiency. A CDP unifies individual data with unique IDs that create more robust customer records. Many manual tasks are also automated by the CDP, allowing marketers to focus on the creative and analytical tasks they are trained for. The result is more accurate modeling, targeting and personalization in marketing campaigns, and more relevant customer experiences with the brand across channels.

Faster marketing velocity. In many cases, CDPs are “owned” by marketing, minimizing the need for IT or developer intervention to collect, analyze and act upon data. With control in marketers’ hands, the time to segment and build audiences, execute campaigns and analyze results significantly decreases. That said, engineers may still be needed to perform deep data analysis and facilitate integrations. This is especially true as CDPs extend beyond marketing and into sales and service functions.

Stronger regulatory compliance. A CDP creates greater internal control over customer data, streamlining data governance to comply with the many regulations now impacting brands worldwide. Marketers in the healthcare industry must comply with both HIPAA and HITECH regulations. Businesses that handle European data or serve customers in the EU must also comply with GDPR and those dealing with Californians must deal with CCPA
(California Consumer Privacy Act). The majority of CDP vendors are both ISO and SOC certified for best practices in handling personally identifiable information (PII).

Our new report, “Customer Data Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” is now available for free download.

The post What is a CDP and how does it give marketers the coveted ‘single view’ of their customers? appeared first on MarTech.

Why we care. New video screens tailored to specific contexts throughout a brick-and-mortar location can make for a more engaging in-store experience. They also provide an opportunity for advertisers to nudge shoppers toward their products.

For retailers building out their retail media networks (RMNs) for advertisers, more screens in key positions throughout the store can produce more ad inventory. Our look ahead at RMNs indicated that demand is growing for off-site advertising opportunities while on-site and in-store advertising becomes saturated. More in-store inventory improves the experience for shoppers and increases the opportunities for on-site activations.

Integrated screens around the store. The Cooler Screens experience on refrigerator doors shows a video recreation of the products, prices and special offers that shoppers can find chilling inside.

These same capabilities will now be available for screens on non-refrigerated aisles, for coolers at checkout lines, and at in-store pharmacies and other locations throughout the store.

“We are creating an integrated solution across the brick-and-mortar environment, fundamentally transforming the in-store experience,” said Arsen Avakian, founder and CEO of Cooler Screens, in a release.

Functionality. The Cooler Screens units have sensors that measure key shopping metrics like door opens and the amount of time a shopper stands in front of the screen. The system is “identity-blind,” so it isn’t collecting personally identifiable information or looking to identify individual shoppers.

The data about shopping behavior and video screen performance is used to display relevant product information and promotions on the screens. By combining the performance data into a single platform throughout the store, retailers can optimize what they show on screens in different store contexts.

This opens the door for brand advertisers and other retail partners to find the right opportunities to get involved and promote on the screens in a relevant way for shoppers.

In addition to retailers like Walgreens and Kroger, who have installed Cooler Screens technology, brand partners who have used the tech include Anheuser-Busch InBev, The Kraft Heinz Company, Edgewell and others.

Cooler Screens now boasts close to 100 million screen viewers per month across 10,000 U.S. screens, with views projected to double in 2023.

Dig deeper: 2023 Predictions: Experience, ecommerce and transformation

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